Employee Ownership Clusters: Solar Companies in the San Francisco Bay Area
Executive Director
An April 13 article in the North Bay Business Journal notes that three of the pioneering solar companies in the San Francisco Bay Area are at various stages in a journey toward employee ownership. Employee-owned companies do often cluster in industries, such as breweries and health care, and in geographic areas, such as Huntsville, AL, and the state of Ohio.
SolarCraft is a 34-year-old solar company, sold by its two founders to an ESOP in 2015. According to the article, Bill Stewart, one of the founders, "pointed out that they had more lucrative offers to sell to larger companies. Some of his friends who owned solar businesses at that time did sell and later told him it was the worst decision of their life." Gary Gerber, the CEO of Sun Light & Power, created what he calls a "BESOPerative," which is a B corporation that is owned by an ESOP and has a cooperative governance structure. The third company, Solar Works, is on a medium-term plan to create employee ownership.